Bush ties Cold War to war on terrorism (Victims of Communism Memorial Dedication)

Yahoo! News (AFP) ^ | 6/12/2007 | n/a

[Pyro7480]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush paid tribute to the estimated tens of millions killed under communism at a new memorial to their suffering and linked the Cold War to the struggle against terrorism.

Twenty years after then-US president Ronald Reagan stood at the infamous barrier dividing Berlin and urged the Soviet Union to "tear down this wall," Bush said Islamic extremists, like Communists, were "doomed to fail."

His remarks came at the dedication ceremony of a new memorial to the "more than 100 million people" who have died under communism since Russia's Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

"And like the Communists, the followers of violent Islamic radicalism are doomed to fail," said Bush, who has often compared Islamist extremists to Germany's Nazis or Soviet Communists.

"By remaining steadfast in freedom's cause, we will ensure that a future American President does not have to stand in a place like this and dedicate a memorial to the millions killed by the radicals and extremists of the 21st century," he said.

The memorial evokes the papier-mache statue raised by pro-democracy demonstrators on Beijing's Tiananmen Square before they were brutally silenced by Chinese troops in 1989.

Accusing the West of having a "moral blind spot" to communism, backers of the Washington memorial said: "We cannot allow the atrocities of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Castro to fade into the background of history."

The non-profit Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation was created by an act of Congress in 1993 with the aim of emulating memorials to victims of Nazi totalitarian rule.

[Pyro7480]

President Bush, second left, shakes hands with Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., a Hungarian immigrant who survived the holocaust, right, after the president spoke at the dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, Tuesday, June 12, 2007. At left is Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation chairman Lee Edwards. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

This 1989 file photo shows Chinese demonstrators gathering in Tiananmen square to protest by the "Goddess of Democracy" statue, which faces Chairman Mao Tse-tung's portrait. A statue modeled on the "Goddess of Democracy" paraded during the bloody Tiananmen Square protests 18 years ago will be unveiled here Tuesday as a memorial to victims of communism worldwide.(AFP/File/Toshio Sakai)

[Pyro7480]

BTTT

[Loyolas Mattman]

This story bothers me. The two fights are not the same and they are not being fought with the same ferocity. We fought WWII as if our nation’s survival depended on it. Every man, woman, and child in the nation was touched by that conflict.

On the other hand, W has talked up the threat in this war but has fought the left’s PC war at every turn. Are we in it to win it or not? Why fight there, if the borders are wide-open here? What is fact and what is fantasy?

W is just looking to cloak his actions in the glory of the good war.

[Freee-dame]

bump

[onedoug]

At least cold war communists had an expectation of living.
Islamists don't care as long as they take as many of the infidel as they can with them.

[pissant]

Uh, hate to break it to you, but we did not fight the commies in WWII. They were pseudo allies.

[Loyolas Mattman]

Not in their wildest dreams could Radical Islam do what the Russians could have done in a single day.

W does America a disservice when he describes Islamists in the same vein - terrorism can make a huge mess of things, but terrorists could never destroy America. The Russians could, and we lived through some very good years with that threat hanging over our heads.

He gives Islamists far more credit than they deserve.

[pissant]

Islamo fascism is as big a treat to the west as communism. Maybe bigger.

[Loyolas Mattman]

I meant to imply first the Nazis followed by the Russians. Poor writing on my part.

[steveegg]

‘Tis interesting that we had to go to foreign news sources to get this. Seems crAP and the alphabet-news networks (including Fox) couldn’t be bothered from Paris! and Bush-bashing. They’re probably still in denial about the truth of Communism.

[Loyolas Mattman]

I’m not so sure of that anymore. The Russians were a worthy adversary. They had a competing system. They had scary fire-power. They didn’t call it Mutually Assured Distruction for nothing...

Islamists bluster and try to intimidate and pop out of the woodwork from time to time to make a mess of things. We could crush them if we really gave it our all. But for whatever reason, we choose not to.

[Loyolas Mattman]

Shoot, my spelling is terrible today. Sorry.

[what's up]

The two fights are not the same and they are not being fought with the same ferocity. We fought WWII as if our nation’s

WWII wasn't part of the comparison. It was the Cold War.

And that one lasted a generation and there was not nearly as much blood spent in the wars the US were involved in as in WWII.

Thus, the similarities between the Cold War and the WOT.

[Chi-townChief]

It always amazes me how many people don’t know that.

[Thunder90]

Vladimir Putin criticized the victims of commumnism memorial during the G8 conference.

[Loyolas Mattman]

There’s a school of thought that says we should have taken them on one right after the other, while we were “in the neighborhood.” My grandfather was a big proponent of this plan.

[jammer]

You’re exactly right. With this, the Prez has gone from the intermittently bizarre (democracy is the desire of all humans) to the foolish.

[Tailgunner Joe]

bttt

[Eva]

Tom Lantos made similar analogies. He criticized Germany’s Schoeder and Chirac for their ties to Putin and blamed their lack of support for the Iraq war on their ties to Putin. He said that Schroeder was paid off with a job with Gazprom.

It’s surprising since I don’t think that Lantos ever supported the Iraq war, himself.